Drug Abuse: Concepts, Prevention, and Cessation

By Susan Ames and Steve Sussman

(Cambridge University Press, 2008)

Drug Abuse: Concepts, Prevention, and Cessation serves as a comprehensive source of information on the topography of, causes of, and solutions to drug problems. The text covers conceptual issues regarding definitions of drug use, misuse, abuse, and dependence. Importantly, the text addresses a variety of theoretical bases currently applied to the development of prevention and cessation programs, specific program content from evidence-based programs, and program processes and modalities. Information regarding etiology, prevention, and cessation is neatly delineated into (a) neurobiological, (b) cognitive, (c) micro-social, and (d) macro-social/physical environmental units.

Learning from L.A.: Institutional Change in American Public Education

by Charles Taylor Kerchner, David J. Menefee-Libey, Laura Steen Mulfinger, and Stephanie E. Clayton

(Harvard Education Press, 2008)

Drawing on a four-year study of the last 40 years of education reform in Los Angeles, Learning from L.A. captures the sweeping change in American education. It puts forth a provocative argument: while school reformers and education historians have tended to focus on the success or failure of individual initiatives, they have overlooked the fact that, over the past several decades, the institution of public education itself has been transformed. Colorful characters, dramatic encounters, and political skirmishes enliven this rich account of the wrenching transformations that took place in the Los Angeles Unified School District from the 1960s onward. The book focuses particularly on four key ideas that emerged through a succession of reforms beginning in the 1990s: decentralization, standards, school choice, and grassroots participation. Though the particular plans that gave rise to these ideas may have faded, the ideas themselves have taken root and developed in ways that those who inaugurated or participated in these reforms never anticipated.

A Primer on Corporate Governance

by Cornelis A. de Kluyver

(Business Expert Press, 2009)

This book is a primer on corporate governance – the system that defines the distribution of rights and responsibilities among different participants in the corporation, such as the board, managers, shareholders and other stakeholders, and spells out the rules and procedures for making decisions on corporate affairs. Corporate governance also deals with how a company’s objectives are set, the means of attaining those objectives and monitoring performance. The importance of this subject can hardly be overstated. As recent corporate scandals have shown and the current financial crisis reminds us, the efficacy of corporate decision-making and our regulatory systems directly affect our wellbeing.

Naming God: God’s Name and God as a Name
(published in German)

by Ingolf U. Dalferth and Philipp Stoellger

(Mohr Siebeck, 2008)

Deus definiri nequit, God cannot be defined, is seen as a rule of language and of thought in theology. Deus nominari nequit, however, does not apply. God has to be called by his name, since otherwise he would remain unsaid, and nothing would be more inappropriate. But which name to use, and how to use it, and what happens when using it, has always been a point of contention. This volume contains articles written from the perspective of exegetics and religious studies. Against this backdrop, the authors deal with the Septuagint, the New Testament and the Christological concentration on the question of the name. Based on this compact concentration, they then explore the prospective areas in which the name of God can presently be understood and used responsibly. These studies take us from negative theology to the relationship between trinity and tetragram and up to the infinity of the name with the goal of naming God and not letting him remain nameless, since the name of God is the basic phenomenon of Christian theology – and of any Christian theology which wants to remain one.